A smash-and-grab in the early hours on Wednesday became the theft heard around the Internet before noon.

Little did the guilty parties know when they stole four guitars out of Carmen Townsend’s car in west-end Halifax they would become the subject of Internet ire as news of the theft spread through social media.

“All I know is, I never leave my instruments in my car, but I did last night,” the Music Nova Scotia and East Coast Music Award winner said from Halifax Regional Police headquarters.

“They were in my trunk, and someone smashed in my back window and cleaned me out.”

The stolen instruments include Townsend’s trademark cherry red 1965 Guild Starfire, a Takamine acoustic, a light brown Fender Squier Thinline Telecaster and a brown Fender Stratocaster that was a rental from Long & McQuade.

Shortly after she posted about the incident on Facebook and Twitter, friends and fans began sharing and retweeting the news to thousands of contacts, with some posts accompanied by pictures of the guitars and Photoshopped wanted posters.

“First and foremost, we’d like to be able to retrieve the belongings and return them, but we’re looking for any information about the incident,” said Const. Brian Palmeter, regional police spokesman.

“Musical instruments are somewhat unique; it makes them harder to move. I’ve been asked if they were targeted, and quite honestly, I would say no. Chances are (the thieves) lucked into them.”

Later in the day, Townsend reported on her Facebook page that she had been alerted to online ads for one of the guitars, but they vanished almost as soon as they appeared.

“It’s got my guitar strings in the picture, my guitar strap is in the picture, and my guitar case,” she recalled. “It’s been taken down from Kijiji, but it’s my guitar, and these idiots have the rest of them, for sure.

“Who does that? Some kid posted it on Facebook, too, saying, ‘I have a new guitar that I don’t play. It comes with a cord or whatever. It’s from Long & McQuade.’ Are you a complete idiot?”

The appearance of the ad at least offers hope that Townsend’s instruments may yet be recovered.

“Certainly, she should try and contact (the seller) and perhaps it can be determined if it’s actually her guitar,” said Palmeter.

“Given that these are very unique instruments, we would encourage whoever took them to try and find a way to return them, or leave them somewhere and let police know where we can retrieve them.”

In 2003, Cape Breton Celtic-bluegrass musician J.P. Cormier had several thousand dollars’ worth of instruments and equipment stolen from a van parked overnight in Dartmouth.

At the time, he credited the media attention surrounding the theft with the return of two custom acoustic guitars, which were left at the office of attorney Joel Pink, although a third instrument, a prized Gibson banjo, did not resurface.

“Fear brought these back,” Cormier said of the instrument thieves at the time. “They knew if they got caught by the law, they would go to jail.”